Grantham Arms
The Grantham Arms is a public house located in the village of Downton, in Yorkshire, England. Like many British pubs, the name derives from the image shown on the sign, which in this case are the arms of an Earl of Grantham. The arms displayed on the pub sign are the same as the arms used by the Downton Cottage Hopital, and are probably the arms of Robert's father. The Grantham arms used in the pub sign and on the hospital cannot be the arms of Robert, the Earl of Grantham, or of the Crawley family generally, or of more than one of the previous Earls of Grantham, because they are'' impaled arms (that is, two different arms shown side by side on a single shield.) Impaled arms are used by men who are married to women who are themselves the daughters of families with arms, but who are not the heiresses or co-heiresses of those families. As an American merchant, Isidore Levinson (the father of Cora, Robert's wife) almost certainly did not have a coat of arms, and so Robert would not be able to display his own arms impaled with those of Cora's family. The last Earl of Grantham to marry the daughter of an armigerous family was Robert's father, for the father of Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, was a baronet, and therefore must have had a coat of arms. As Robert's father was the founder of the cottage hospital, it may be assumed that the arms on the hospital sign are his, and as the pub sign of the Granthm Arms pub shows the same arms, it may be assumed that the Grantham Arms sign depicts the arms of Robert's father. It can thus be assumed that the arms of the Crawley family in general, and of Robert in particular, are only the arms shown on the dexter side of the impaled shield: ''Azure,'' a chevron or between three lion's heads cabossed of the second, while the arms of the baronet who was the father of Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, were the quartered arms shown on the sinister side of the impaled shield: ''Quarterly, I and IV gules, a lion rampant or, II and III or, a bend engrailed gules between two crosses pattee fitchy sable. Tom Branson spends a short while lodged in this pub in 1919, after his dismissal from the post of chauffeur at Downton Abbey for his engagement with Lady Sybil. The Earl of Grantham went there and offered him money to leave the estate and Sybil, but Branson refused his money. In 1921, new maid Edna, who had eyes for the recently-widowed Branson, "accidentally" ran into him there. She had overheard that he would not be back for lunch and skipped work to go there. Later when she tells Mr. Carson that she cannot work that afternoon as she had made plans for lunch with "Tom" Branson, it is decided that she must be fired. In 1922, Carson puts Alfred up there, telling him there is flu in the house, which in fact was a ruse to keep him away from feuding Daisy and Ivy. In the end the ruse failed as Alfred stops in at the Abbey anyway. Tom later eats dinner there with Sarah Bunting in 1923. Appearances Category:Downton Category:Locations Category:Public Houses Category:Downton estate